Dallas Day of Discovery @ Region 10

Yesterday was a fun filled day for Dallas Teachers with a visit from Discovery Education. About 200 teachers from as far as 3 hours away came for a day of networking and learning to increase their knowledge on Discovery tools and more. Matt Monjan led a session on digital storytelling tools for the classroom. He provided the teachers with a lot of neat web 2.0 tools including AudioPal. AudioPal will allow the user to record an audio recording via text, phone or by recording your voice. It then allows you to embed the player into your Discovery writing prompts, website or into other useful places like your blog. Lindsey Hopkins shared some deep powerpoint features that will allow you to create a truly interactive non-linear powerpoint with embeded movies and links. Finally Joe Diaz finished up the presentations with a presentation on 50 ways to integrate Discovery Streaming. All of the resources can be found here.

The best part of the day though was the last hour (at least for me). This hour brought the introduction to Iron Den. Iron Den is just like Iron chef… but totally different. Three teams were chosen. Each team was led by a DEN Leadership Council Member. Those people where April Adams, Beth Weeks and Me… Lea Anne Daughrity. The team’s had two additional members chosen from the audience. Although I didn’t get to meet the other team’s team members, my team was made up of myself, Unique and Ciji.

We were given an overall theme of photosynthesis and asked to create an intro to a lesson on this topic. Finally, we were asked to include a secret ingredient. That ingredient was a picture of a pig. Hmmm! With 35 minutes left, the teams ran off to there own corners and discussed, planned and created their product. The time limit was challenging and it definitely got the blood pumping! In the end we had three great presentations. April’s team chose to create based on all of the activities of the day.

Beth’s team included some of the day’s elements and created a glog for the lesson.

Our team created the entire thing on the iPad using Puppet Pals, iMovie, the camera and keynote. All three deserved a round of applause but just like Iron chef, there can only be one winner. Here is the winning submission:

All in all, it was a great day. The teachers from the Metroplex enjoyed their day of learning and fun and many walked away with some great prizes. The most important part though, was all of the great networking that went on and all of the sharing of ideas and passion.